


midday, calla bryn sturgis.

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Gun Kink, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:57:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie has a strange desire and doesn't know how to express it. Luckily, the object of his desire is a little more perceptive than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	midday, calla bryn sturgis.

Midday, Calla Bryn Sturgis.  
Old Callahan was out of the house, going about his daily business. Roland liked sharing a room with the preacher man. He didn't keep Roland up with nervous chatter, staving off the inevitable sink into nightmare. They sunk into nightmare together. Sometimes they found each other and bore each other up towards the surface.

But it was midday, now. Sun beating down on the expanse, sound of idle chatter and less-than-idle commerce wafting in through the open windows, the lowing of cattle, far off. The house is quiet.

Eddie comes in, all bluster and heat. Roland turns away from the window, but he is already talking.

"Nice day out, Roland. Should take advantage of it. I mean, not that there won't be more nice days, but... well--"

Roland's severe look is like a tourniquet, cutting off the flow of words. Eddie raises his hands, his face chagrined. "Uh. Sorry. Ain't interruptin', am I?"

"What is there to interrupt?" Roland replies archly, turning back to the window. He had been mulling over something. Something about Jake. Jake is becoming increasingly more difficult to think of as a boy, his perception far too keen, his countenance--

"Susannah's off with Callahan," Eddie volunteers without provocation, wiping his hand over a counter, rapping smartly on a wooden cabinet, the floorboards creaking under his restless footsteps. "I have no idea what the Slightmans are up to, lost track of them after breakfast. I mean, were we supposed to, like, _trail_ them, or-- like, I'm just not entirely sure--"

"What do you want, Eddie." Roland's voice is flat, annoyed, but he knows that Eddie won't care. It is something clever about Eddie. He takes pushes for what they are, and pushes back.

"I had a dream about... about the thing. You know, when we were in Balazar's place, and..." He doesn't need to finish the sentence. He kens the subtle curl of Roland's fingers into his palm very well. "Well, like. We don't know what's going to happen with this business, with the children and all, and I... I'm kind of a live-life-to-the-fullest kind of guy, you know--"

"Are you?"

"Well, I _try_ to be, you know..." Eddie flounders, then slaps his hand on the countertop and sighs. "You're determined to make this hard for me, aren't you."

"Nothing has ever been gained from being too cowardly to ask a question," Roland responds stolidly. His eyes remain trained on the window, but he can _feel_ Eddie behind him, the anxiety rolling off him in waves and manifesting in rapid-fire speech and grandiose gestures. What he wants to give Eddie, a quiet center that knows no static and feels no pain, he cannot. Eddie will find that himself, later on down the road. And he hesitates to give Eddie what he wants right now, because it seems base, indulgent. Roland has never gone in for indulgence.

Eddie sidles up to stand beside him, splays his hands carefully over the rim of the sink, curls his fingers in to grip it and grip it strong.  
"That was one of the scariest moments of my stupid life, you know. Henry being... well, you know, and all the gunfire, and just... being scared shitless that I wasn't going to measure up, that there was this thing I was close to being a part of and I was going to cock up like a real dumbass because, you know. I'm me, right? But... I don't know what happened, but... now I kinda... I kinda just remember the way you looked at me. When it was all over, like. I was... probably the most vulnerable I've ever felt since, I don't know, like high school? Butt-naked, got this big gun in my hand, blood all over me, don't even know whose it is..." Eddie is breathing hard, gripping the edge of the sink, trying to concentrate, trying not to bolt. "I kinda loved you then, stupid as it was. Right in the middle of all this bullshit, right, I'm feelin' like some starlet in a bitch flick. 'I don't even know who this guy is, but he's been here with me this whole time, and everyone else I've loved is dead' kinda thing."

Roland is still listening, although he can read circles in people's speech the way one reads between straight lines in a book, and he thinks he knows where Eddie will end up. But he doubts he is ready for it. So he lets Eddie ramble, for both of their sakes.

"Anyway, uh. You know I love Susannah, right."

"I know."

"She's... I don't know, she's perfect. I would do anything for her. I thank some kinda god every night for her."

"But."

"But I... I don't know, Roland. I want somethin' else outta you. And I don't know what it is. And I'm hoping you know, and will slap it outta me or something, because I can't sleep right no more. Even next to Susannah, I can't sleep right."

A moment of silence between them. Roland processes, deconstructing phrases with an efficiency that would impress an engineer. He hesitates to give Eddie what he wants right now, because it seems base and indulgent, but Eddie's door read two words that have stuck with Roland throughout their journey thus far. The young man builds prisons out of meadows and still loses the keys. Roland is even more loath to be a jailer, even if it makes him an accomplice.  
Eddie feels like a firebrand next to him, radiating heat like an overtaxed motor, and Roland thinks about that, then considers the house, and how empty it is. How empty it will remain until the sun sinks lower, much lower.

"Come in here. Get out of those clothes. You're burning up."

Eddie follows him dutifully, to the small but serviceable bedroom that Roland shares with Callahan. The door closes silently behind him, the snick of the latch a mere whisper in time. Eddie strips out of the shirt easily enough, but when he reaches his waistband he turns back to Roland, quick, his eyes sharp like flint but his lips parted in uncertainty.

"I can't ever tell what you're doing to me, you know that, right."

"Maybe you'll be more forthright with me when there's less to hide behind," is Roland's response, matter-of-fact and inscrutable. Eddie inhales, staring at him a moment longer, then nods once, sharply, as if to himself. The pants puddle on the floor beside the shirt. Eddie stands nude before Roland, shoulders slightly stooped, his hands twitching as if to cover himself, but he clenches them into fists and keeps them by his side. Roland nods.

"What is it you mean to ask me, Eddie Dean?"

"I don't..." Eddie is faltering again, but his hands remain by his side, and Roland notes that. "I don't know what I mean to ask. I asked enough, didn't I? You ain't dumb. You know me. You know what I mean..."

Roland considers him, all of him, what he can see and what he can't see. He steps away from the door and reaches for his gun belt, unbuckling it, resting it on the foot of the bed. But Eddie clears his throat, and he glances up at him questioningly.  
Eddie is looking sidelong at the gun in its holster, at its sandalwood grip and the barrel hidden behind oiled leather, and his jaw is slack enough for Roland to take note. Then he's squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head.

"You're an irregular one," Roland comments, nonplussed, and Eddie expels breath in a gust of nervous laughter. He opens his eyes slowly when he hears the gun sliding out of the holster, and watches avidly as Roland hefts it, weighing it in his hand, pretending not to notice Eddie's gaze.

"I once met a woman named Sylvia Pittston," Roland muses, unloading the chamber, one bullet at a time. He can hear Eddie breathing, an irregular rhythm at the edges of his hearing. "She was pregnant. The child was fell, an agent of Red. I did what I had to do, but I can't say I don't sometimes question _how_ I did it."  
He flicks the chamber back into place, empty of cartridges. "And now here you are."

He could almost laugh at the look on Eddie's face, a hodgepodge of uncertainty and fascination and lust. He wants to know what Roland is alluding to, what horrible thing he had to do to Sylvia Pittston to prevent her from giving birth to a fell son. He knows, at the same time, that he doesn't need Roland to tell him. And his pupils are dilating as he zeroes in on the revolver held so comfortably in Roland's grasp as the gunslinger draws nearer, his extremities trembling, his blood rushing like whitewater rapids.

"Don't hurt me," Eddie says, quick as a gunshot, his voice clearer than it's been since he'd walked in, all bluster and heat. His eyes lock onto Roland's.

Roland smiles slightly, knowing what he means.

His free hand curls into Eddie's hair and tugs his head back as he closes the distance between them, and the scent that rolls off the younger man is heady, searching. Eddie can't see the hand that holds the gun, but he can feel its cool metal against the outside of his thigh, the slight curve of his hip, the quivering skin of his belly. He gasps and squirms in Roland's grasp, but Roland's hand tightens just enough in his hair, and he struggles to remain still. 

Roland wants to ask, cannot connect the cold impersonality of his gun to the warmth that flushes Eddie's skin and quickens his breath, but he knows it is not the time. It is, anyway, much more gratifying to watch Eddie's eyelashes as they flutter against his flushed cheeks, to splay his free hand over Eddie's throat, shoulder, back, and feel him shudder as the gun's barrel flicks over one of his nipples on its way up to his neck, to know that below his eyesight, Eddie grows hard and insistent, and to wait for that hardness to nudge at Roland's blessedly clothed groin.

The barrel is at Eddie's chin. Eddie tips his head down, his eyes nearly closed, and ghosts his lips over it. Roland raises it, slowly, watching every motion of Eddie's head, and Eddie follows it with his mouth, until he can lave his tongue up the underside of the barrel. His body sways closer to Roland's as he does, and he groans when his erection collides with the other man. He starts to falter, but Roland isn't relinquishing the ground he's gained. He keeps the gun where it is, for now, but runs a pair of questing fingers up the underside of Eddie's cock.

Eddie moans, his eyes still nearly closed, his lips still parted and his head lolling as if it is too heavy for his shoulders. Roland gently tosses the gun onto the bed and cradles Eddie's head in his newly-freed hand, curling his other hand around his cock and squeezing. Eddie moans again, his hips rolling, but he does not open his eyes. Roland has him.

And Roland takes care of him, letting Eddie's head rest on his shoulder and curving his arm around his shoulder blades, concentrating on the pumping action of his other hand, his maimed but still serviceable right hand. Eddie doesn't seem to mind the compromised grip, his hips rolling with increasing insistence, his mouth open and gusting warm breath and the occasional groan against Roland's throat, his cock twitching as he draws nearer and nearer to climax.

"Fuck," he gasps, then _"fuck,"_ his voice unraveling, his breath thin and noisy, his hands grasping at Roland's shirt and digging in, trying to find purchase as his legs became like jelly. Roland's hand tightens around his shoulders to support him as he continues to pump him, his own breathing and heart rate steady as it can be, his eyes closed in concentration.

"Come now, Eddie," he murmurs, unable to ignore his own body's interest in the proceedings and wishing to remain separate for now. He would think on this later, and dream about it, and perhaps the next time they meet like this it will be different -- but that cannot be right now. Eddie moans at the sound of Roland's voice, digging his fingers into Roland's sides and pushing himself into Roland's grip. And he does come, surprisingly, like a summer storm -- the orgasm breaks over him without warning, flushing him hot and electric, and he cries out in both surprise and the agony of pleasure.

" _Fuck!_ Fuck... oh, fuck. Oh, god, Roland. Oh god. Oh... oh god." He continues on like this for a few more moments, sagging in Roland's grasp until the gunslinger guides him to rest upon the bed.

"Oh, god. Oh, Susannah. Forgive me. Forgive me. You see? You see, love, I love him, too," is the last thing Roland hears as he lets the door click shut behind him, and he wishes he'd been quicker to leave, or Eddie been quieter. He wishes, but he knows better.

He'd been with his fair share of people -- it is difficult to avoid and silly to avoid it. He knows the difference between being loved for a moment, when his hand or his tongue or his cock is good, and being loved in consummation, when all that was left to do was the physical. Eddie didn't love lightly. Nor did Roland give lightly, in this particular way, thinking that he is putting himself away and making himself a mere instrument, without realising that he is the most present of them both.

Callahan strolls in, later, when the sun is shining directly into the windows like a beacon, and finds Roland at the window, much like Eddie had found him.

"All right?" he asks, shrewdly, his eyes roving over Roland's profile with a keenness that the gunslinger didn't shy away from.

"All right," he responds, thinking of Eddie, vulnerable, unpredictable Eddie, caught fast in dreamless slumber on his bed.


End file.
